Former Greenwich man gets 1-year prison term for embezzlement

Dirk Perrefort

Published 8:41 pm, Wednesday, June 18, 2014

A former Greenwich man in the meat business was sentenced this week to one year in prison for failing to report more than $678,000 in income while serving as the CEO of Diamond Ranch Foods in the Bronx.

According to court documents, Louis Vucci Jr., 45, embezzled the money from the New York-based company from 2005 to 2009 by depositing customer payments into his personal bank account and providing weekly paychecks of $2,500 to his wife, who didn't actually work for the company.

His wife, Karen Vucci, however, claims in a letter she wrote to the court that their accountant, Stephen Corso, was to blame for the fiasco. The family later learned Corso became an organized crime informant after federal authorities accused him of stealing more than $5 million from his clients.

"The paychecks and customer checks were not his idea," Karen Vucci wrote in the letter about her husband, her high school sweetheart. "The accountant told him to do it this way for all the money in inventory and accounts receivable he gave when the business just started."

Corso was facing nearly seven years in prison for stealing money from his clients in 2002 when he agreed to work with FBI agents who were building a case against two New York City detectives long suspected of collaborating with organized crime.

Corso was fitted with a wire and began recording conversations he had with organized crime members who were visiting Las Vegas. The more than 900 hours of tape that resulted from his cooperation resulted in several successful prosecutions.

"Steve Corso was not trustworthy," Karen Vucci wrote in her letter to the court. "After he prepared our taxes, he went to jail."

Other letters from friends and relatives described Louis Vucci as a hard-working and dedicated family man who attending all of his children's sporting events and would often give to the poor and homeless he would come across, sometimes using the situations as learning experiences for his children.

According to court documents, Vucci reported an income to the IRS in 2008 of negative $6,349, when his income for that year was $176,621. From 2005 to 2008, authorities said Vucci reported an income of less than $30,000 each year, automatically qualifying him for the Earned Income Tax Credit, yielding a refund rather than taxes owed.

At the time, Vucci and his family were living in a house in Greenwich they rented for about $8,500 a month. Vucci moved to Ridgefield after purchasing a house in town in 2007 for $975,000.

Vucci pleaded guilty last October to one count of tax evasion. He agreed to pay nearly $200,000 to the IRS as part of his plea deal.